Railway-car ladder.



- W. E. WILLIAMS.

RAILWAY GAB. LADDER.

APPLICATION FILED AUG. 28, 1913.

Patented Apr. 14,1914.

l 3 i l RAILWAY-GAR LADDER.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM ERASTUs IVILLIAMs, a citizen of the UnitedStates, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State ofIllinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Railway-CarLadders, of which the following is a specification.

The general object of this invention is to provide a car ladder thatshall be unusually strong, light, durable, low in cost, and unlikely toinjure those who use it.

In the drawings, Figurel is a perspective view of my devices applied toa car. Fig. 2 is a plan view of a step seen in Fig. 1. Figs. 3, i are,respectively, an elevation and a vertical section of a similar ladderbody used with an ordinary step. a

In these views, 1 represents a car body provided near one corner withintegrally connected end and side ladders. Each of these ladders has oneach side a pair of side or stile rods 2 lying in a plane perpendicularto the car wall and held in place at some distance from the latter byrung rods 8, 4 passing between the rods of each pair and electricallywelded to both. The rungs 4 are bonttoward the car at 5, just withoutthe body of the ladder and are provided with terminal eyes 6 adaptingthem to be bolted to the car, and as it is desirable to have the stilesheld very securely near the edge of the car roof and undesirable to usea rung at this point, a short rod 9 is welded to each side or stile ofthe ladder, carried back to the car wall, and there fixed by a bolt. Therods forming each stile are bent inward in the plane of the pair justabove the margin of the roof and carried for some distance along thesurface of the latter, the rods of the side ladder being welded to aninterposed rung 8, similar to the rungs 4 and preferably secured to theroof as at 14. The inwardly bent stiles of the end ladder meet and areintegrally connected to the nearer stile of the side ladder, wherebyeach strongly aids in preventing its companion ladder from being tornfrom the car, and at the same time the four stiles and the rung 8 afiordmany variously disposed hand holds some of which may probably be caughtin case a sudden lurch should cause either right or left hand to be eveninstinctively thrown out to seek support.

Each ladder preferably has its stile rods extended below the car therods on one side Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed August 28,1913.

Patented Apr. M, 19144;. Serial No. 787,122.

being integrally connected with the corresponding rods of the otherside, the projectlng parts and their connections forming two stirrups inthe same horizontal plane. Between the two connecting portions 10 and inthe same plane is placed the lower member of a third stirrup 11 thebranches of which have terminal eyes to be bolted to the lower wall orsill of the car, as seen at 12. The three lower members just describedare all welded to filler pieces 13, thus forming a strong and rigidladder step below the car body. This step may be omitted if desired forany reason, and in that case, the common single rod stirrup step beingused, the lower part of the ladder would appear as in Figs. 3, 4, a rungat being used as the lower rung of the ladder and secured to the car inthe manner before indicated.

The fastening securing the ladders to the roof may be omitted, with someloss of strength, of course; but the factor of safety will remainunusually large.

What I claim is:

1. In a car ladder, the combination with two stile members eachconsisting of two slightly separated parallel rods, of a series of rungspassing between the rods of each stile, welded to both, bent inwardly atthe sides of the ladder to form legs, and provided with terminal eyes tobe bolted to a car.

2. In a car ladder, the combination with two stile members eachconsisting of two parallel rods in a plane perpendicular to the plane ofthe ladder, bent in that plane near their upper ends to extend for somedistance along a car roof, of a series of rungs passing between andwelded to the rods of both stiles, bent inwardly at the sides of theladder to form short legs, and provided with terminal eyes adapting themto be bolted to the car.

3. The combination with a car, of a side ladder hming its stiles formedof parallel rods all integrally connected by rungs and bent to extendinwardly along the car roof, and a second similar ladder adapted to befixed to the end of the car and having its stile rods rigidly connectedwith those of the first ladder above the roof of the car.

4. In a car ladder, the combination with stiles each consisting of tworods in the same plane integrally united at intervals by rungs and eachrod at its lower end being connected to its companion in the other stileby an integral rocl section parallel to the rungs scribed my name in thepresence of two subof a stlrrup lnterposed between szud. rod secscrlblngWitnesses, on tlns 23rd clay of Autlons and havlng branches adapted tobe se' gust 1913.

cured to the bottom of a car, and filler WILLIAM ERASTUS WILLIAMS.blocks integrally uniting the rod sections Witnesses: d and stirrup?JULIUS JENSEN,

In witness whereof I have hereunto sub- MARIE JENSEN.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents "each, byaddressing the Gommissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. C.

